


Salt and Sugar

by UmbreonGurl



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Tatiana is really good at her job, respect your healers folks, she's also had enough of Jerome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28271859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbreonGurl/pseuds/UmbreonGurl
Summary: Alm has always had a bad habit of finding new allies in strange places, but the basement of Nuibaba’s Castle and the woman he finds in its depths have to be one of the strangest.
Kudos: 10





	Salt and Sugar

Tatiana has never had a last name—last names come from your mother and father, and she has been a child of the church for as long as she can remember. Duma has no last name to bestow upon his children—nothing in Rigel is free, and to be a child of Duma you have to earn it. At least, that’s what Tatiana has always been told. She’s never had a reason to question it before.

The man in front of her, however, makes a fairly convincing argument to the contrary. Jerome has everything he could ever want in the palm of his hand—money, military might, and many would argue Duma’s favor as well (Tatiana would personally disagree with that last one)—never once earning any of it. His fame was gained through bribery instead of battle, with money that he has not worked for and arguably has no right to have.

He walks around the church as if he thinks he owns it, casually drinking wine meant for ceremonies and ordering people around like servants.

It starts when he interrupts morning prayers and demands a sister clean up his soldiers—as if it’s their duty to. Once is bad enough, but after the first time, it starts happening more and more frequently. Some weeks, it happens almost every other day, and nobody does anything about it. 

They say things behind closed doors, of course, but never outside, where eyes can see and people can hear. Whispers make their way through the dormitories like flowing water, constant and always changing.

 _Jerome did this today, Jerome did that._ It’s a never ending sea of rumors and hearsay, of shock and awe at what he had dared to do today.

The church serves no man—let alone him—and yet nobody is allowed to actively tell him that. 

So Tatiana does—but only by _accident_ , of course. The sugar in his serving of the nightly meal is occasionally swapped for salt, a dash of prune juice occasionally added to his stolen wine, vinegar and salt and alcohol accidentally splashed on his weapons. (Sometimes they are legitimate, honest mistakes. Other times, not so much. Tatiana is the only one who will ever know which is which.) 

It’s not enough to get him to leave, by any means, but it’s enough of an inconvenience to make it very clear that he’s not welcome here.

And she’s never blamed for it. Nobody ever blames the ditzy church girl, the cute little healer with hair like seafoam and moss, the priestess with a smile bright enough to light up the prayer hall. Few ever look deep enough to see the backbone that hides behind a crystal staff, to see the woman who holds soldiers lives in her hands and decides who lives and who dies.

Many consider her healing abilities to be a talent. Most of the soldiers don’t care why or how their wounds magically stitch themselves back together, and simply chock it up to a bit of magical affinity and a nurturing nature. They’re not entirely wrong, but they aren’t exactly right, either.

They don’t look in the library and see her poring over tomes and scripture late into the night, they don’t see the sister with blisters on her heels and the woman helping to bake the meals they eat.

Jerome sees her as any man with an ego bigger than Rigel does—just another pebble under his boot, another healer to order around like a servant, another faceless sister among a sea of many. It’s one of the first mistakes he makes in her presence. It isn’t the last, either.

* * *

Nuibaba’s basement isn’t awful, all things considered. It’s not _ideal_ either by any means, but Tatiana gets three meals a day and nobody really bothers her much. In a way, the silence is a blessing, free from Jerome’s constant barking orders.

At the same time, it is torturous knowing they locked her up not because she was a _threat_ —because the clumsy priestess who mixes up salt and sugar could never be one of those—but to keep Ezekiel in line.

She had the loyalty of probably twice as many men—they all knew better than to bite the hand that heals their wounds—and yet still she is the one used as a hostage, not him. (It’s not that she wants him to be in her place, but it’s still a bit irritating how healers are always overlooked on the battlefield until someone gets hurt and they come crying for their mothers.)

But she can’t do anything about it from inside a prison cell—even if it is one on the nicer side. 

It’s one of the reasons why Alm is an incredibly convenient stroke of luck. He doesn’t open that cell door because Tatiana is useful, and he doesn’t do it because she’s a pretty woman he wants to impress—anyone who talks to him for even a fraction of a second knows his heart already belongs to Celica. Alm unlocks that door and offers his help simply because it’s the right thing to do. Something about that is just so refreshing, just so novel.

The fact he’s willing to take on Jerome without needing much convincing is just icing on the cake. It helps even more that Ezekiel seems to take a liking to him rather quickly as well (although Tatiana suspects he’s a bit biased considering that she had vouched for his character.)

The Deliverance is an eclectic group—full of nobles and farmers and soldiers alike, but everyone is treated with respect so long as you do your part to help out. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or what family you were born into, there’s always jobs to be done. An army runs on far much more than soldiers, there needs to be people to feed them, clothe them, house them, heal them. 

In a way, it represents the core ideal of what she had always been taught. Duma rewards hard work, and you cannot reap what you do not sow. 

The seeds of something new, something exciting, are planted with every step the Deliverance takes, planted by Zofian hands and plowed with Rigelian hard work. Alm is a nice young man. Maybe she’ll stick around for a while and see where things lead.

**Author's Note:**

> Made for the Fire Emblem Compendium Secret Anna gift exchange event! :) Happy holidays!


End file.
